Red Goodbye
by Jez0209
Summary: It had to be a nightmare. It couldn't be anything else. The man she thought she could trust with all her soul, wanted her dead.


**Hello there! This is my first Mentalist fanfic. It's just a little something that I felt like writing for all The Mentalist fans out there.**

**I didn't want to get much into detail because my knowledge of the plot is not as great as yours. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it.**

**Disclamer: I do not own "The Mentalist."**

**Red Goodbye**

It had to be a nightmare. It couldn't be anything else.

That's what Teresa Lisbon thought while she stared unseeingly at her hands on her knees. She was sitting on a bed; hospital gown on, no makeup, eyes red and swollen. She was quite the vision.

And she was in a mental health facility.

Everything started a couple of months ago, when Jane and she were on the hunt of Red John. Something happened one night; something that had made possible for her to finally confess her true feelings to Jane. He had rejected her at first, telling her that he couldn't do that to his late wife and breaking her heart in the process; but that same night, Jane showed up at her door. Particular fragments of that conversation played on her mind more often than not. It was the last conversation they'd had before everything went down.

"_I think you missed my point earlier today"_ he had told her; the seriousness in his voice had taken Lisbon aback _"Someone like me can only bring you pain,"_ he had said, and she had laughed incredulously.

"_Don't you think I get to decide that?"_ she had told him _"What are we? High schoolers?"_

"_No, we're not,"_ he had replied sternly.

That had been all it took to convince him. They shared a passionate kiss after that that soon escalated into something more; Jane had kissed her lips, her neck, her collarbone, but then, the simple action of discarding the shirt she was wearing, had changed her whole life.

There was something she had neglected to mention Jane about the night she was kidnapped by Red John. She had forgotten to tell him that she had woken up with the novelty that she had a new tattoo on her left shoulder; a three-dot tattoo.

His eyes had filled with horror when he saw it, and all of the sudden all she had been able to see in them was pure hate.

He hadn't even given her the chance to explain.

"_It all makes sense now_." he had told her _"Of course he didn't kill you!_ _He didn't kill you because "he" it's you!_" he'd yelled. Lisbon hadn't been able to deny it because he just wouldn't listen to a word she said.

She often wondered what had stopped him from taking her life with his own hands.

It all happened so fast from then on, and knowing what was coming, she had just waited for things to unfold. She hadn't done anything, so there was no reason for her to get worried.

She had been so wrong.

Somehow, someone had managed to set her up, making her look like some psycho stalker that had always been obsessed with Jane, and who had started killing to attract his attention. Every little detail pointed at her. The police found evidence that she had been following Jane for years, waiting for the right moment to kill his wife and daughter, and found proof that she had been using her position as a CBI agent to get rid of all the things that could link her to Red John. It had been so carefully planned that there were times in which she actually believed she was guilty.

At first, she had tried to do everything she could to clear her name, but when Van Pelt told her that Jane was trying to get the death penalty for her, she had lost all will to fight. The person who had told her he'd always be there for her; the one she had always thought she could trust with all her soul, wanted her dead.

Jane had been present when she was arrested, contemplating the scene with sick satisfaction; Lisbon never thought she'd see that kind of emotion on Jane, let alone directed towards her.

Seeing him testify against her in the trial had been the last straw.

The evidence against her had been so convincing that the best deal her lawyer had been able to get was for her to serve her sentence on a mental health facility if she pleaded guilty.

Jane had obviously not been pleased by that and had reacted with rage, yelling all kinds of hurtful things lo Lisbon. They exchanged one last look before she was taken into custody; hers full of pain, his full of hatred.

"_Someone's here to see you,_" her caregiver told her, snapping her out of her reverie. Lisbon looked at the woman long and hard; the tone she had used sickened Lisbon; it was the tone they used with people that were as sick as they all were telling her she was. Lisbon nodded absently, wiping away a rebellious tear that had escaped; she was surprised by this for she thought she had run out of tears a long time ago. She stood up, and smooth out her gown unconsciously.

Her breath caught at the sight of Jane waiting for her. She should have known that he would want to see her eventually.

She walked slowly to him, feeling his intense gaze on her, following her every move. She sat in front of him, thankful that there was a table separating them. She didn't dare facing him; she couldn't stand the way he now looked at her.

"Why, Teresa?" he asked her calmly, groggily. She lifted her green eyes to reply; she had to.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I've been framed?" she told him tiredly.

"You don't have to deny it anymore. It's over now."

Lisbon nodded, not as an admission to any of the things Jane had said, but as an admission to herself that this was the way things were now with him.

"All you have to do is admit it," he said.

"I'm not going to admit something I didn't do," she replied, frustration welling up inside of her.

"Your life is in my hands," he told her with a trace of anger in his voice.

"Wasn't it always?" she snapped back. Jane frowned at her reply, but quickly recovered.

"Why did you do it, Teresa?" he insisted. Lisbon stared at him with sad eyes. There was no point in talking to him; it was useless.

"We're done here, Jane," she told him and got up, heading for the door as fast as her legs allowed, and without looking back. She heard a weak "_We're not done yet, Lisbon_" behind closed doors.

The faith Van Pelt, Rigsby and Cho still had on her, paid off in the end. From the moment Lisbon was apprehended, her former team had focused on proving her innocence, using all their time and resources, and risking their jobs and names.

They achieved it within five months, and she was finally released after many long weary weeks. As soon as she stepped out of her "prison" and felt the beaming sunlight on her face, she decided that she needed a change.

She knew it was a matter of time before Jane came looking for her at her apartment. It happened a few days later while she was packing the last of her clothes. When she heard the soft knocking on her door, she immediately knew it was Jane.

When she opened it and saw Jane standing there with his apologetic aura, she felt a rush of anger.

"Hey" he said softly, almost shyly, and Lisbon threw daggers at him with her eyes.

"What do you want, Jane?" she asked him bluntly.

"I was hoping that maybe… we could talk," he replied in the same bashful tone he had been using.

"Talk" Lisbon muttered "I don't think there's something left for us to talk."

"Please" Jane begged.

Lisbon sighed in defeat, and stepped aside to let him in, closing the door behind them shortly after.

"How you've been?" he asked, and Lisbon felt like slapping him.

"I've been," she replied dryly.

There was a moment of silence before Jane dared to speak again.

"When I heard you've been released…"

"I don't have time for this, Jane," she cut him off "so I would really appreciate if you went straight to the chase."

"I don't know what to say," was his honest reply.

"Then I don't know what you are still doing here," she spat.

"Lisbon…"

"I have to say that from all the people I trusted you were the last I expected to turn his back to me," she said bitterly.

"You have to understand, Teresa. I was confused. Everything pointed at you." he told her, doing his best to explain himself, but Lisbon shook her head in a negative gesture.

"I knew. I knew form the moment I met you that this whole Red John obsession of yours would end up drifting you away from the people who cared about you," she said "Because I cared Jane. I cared, and I loved you."

Jane froze; had she just said what he thought she said?

"What are you saying?" he mumbled, and Lisbon shied away, suddenly aware of what she'd just said.

"I'm leaving Jane. I'm leaving and I'm never coming back," she said, successfully deviating the attention from her previous statement.

"Why?" Jane asked, dumbfounded.

"Why?" Lisbon repeated in disbelief "This past couple of months have been… interesting to say the least," she said "I need to put some distance from everything and everyone. I need to put some distance from you," she admitted quietly.

"I was wrong, and I'm sorry," he said in a sorrowful voice. That infuriated Lisbon.

"Wrong? You were more than wrong, Jane!" she yelled "You almost got me executed!"

Jane didn't say anything to that. She was right and he knew it.

"You don't have to do this. We can start again."

"There is no "we" Jane; there never was," she told him ruefully "It took me a while to understand it, but I finally did."

Lisbon words fell on Jane like a bucket of cold water.

"If I ever hurt you in any way," he started "I'm sorry," he said, and Lisbon looked away.

"You hurt me in more than one way, Jane," she said, her eyes brimming with tears.

After a few seconds of deadly silence, Lisbon exhaled deeply and stepped forward, making the distance between her and Jane non-existent. He was startled by her sudden movement and closed his eyes, expecting to feel her hand coming hard across his face, but instead, he felt her soft lips on him on a feather-like kiss near the corner of his lips.

"I hope that one day, you find whatever that is you've been so desperately looking for," she half-whispered, and wiped away some tears when she pulled away.

Jane's lips parted in response, as if to say something, but words just wouldn't come out.

"Goodbye, Jane" Lisbon said, holding the door open for Jane. He said nothing, and realizing that there was nothing else he could do or say, he just walked out the door. As he passed her by, he felt a pang of pain when Lisbon didn't look at him.

As he stood outside her apartment, with his back at the closed door, he tried to make some sense as to why he had been unable to tell Lisbon that it was the day he met her when he found what he'd been looking for.

_**Thoughts?**_

_**It would be great if you left a review to let me know what you think.**_


End file.
